Nexus - 0219 - New Times Magazine-pages

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cheer the US bombers which the proceeded to blow the 'ter- As the atropine started to take effect, the pupils of Otto's rorists’ and their wives and children off the face of the Earth. eyes grew steadily larger despite the intense overhead light- The fact no one would have died at all without the interven- ing and the eye's natural inclination to shut out light under tion of her small deadly Special Operations group was of no such circumstances. The visual-input projector now had concern. For Julia, the world was run by CIA covert opera- direct and unrestricted access to the retina of each of Otto's tions, and nothing else was of consequence. eyes. Julia spoke clearly into a special boom microphone As Julia sat in the hot sunshine smoking a cigarette, she _ positioned less than an inch away from her lips: thought briefly of Otto. It was nearly ten years since one of "Okay, Otto, I am going to take you back to 1970 when the facility's clients had been subjected to such an intense you were flying over Oman. Do you remember the mission programme although the rationale was inescapable: as an _ we talked about before, when your helicopter was covering Englishman, Otto had to be word-perfect in every way, in the the fighter-bombers attacking the fort occupied by Yemeni event he was captured and interrogated during the special __ terrorists?" mission planned for him in the West End of London. "Yes," Otto replied tonelessly without moving a muscle. It was one thing interrogating an Arab who was 'obviously' "Right. You are there again in the cockpit just before the PLO; quite another interrogating an Englishman with a high- _ fighters start their attack run. Everything is so real, Otto, so profile professional oil background. British Intelligence very real. Start flying the mission from there. Remember would pull out all the stops and try especially hard to break = Otto, remember everything—the sight, the sound, the-smells Otto if he were taken alive during or after the mission, and the vibration of the helicopter." A little grimly, Julia cast a sidelong glance at the smoky Otto looked around at the jagged edges of the mountains Atlas Mountains in the background below the helicopter and then back up at as she crushed the cigarette under the horizon, before spotting the two her boot. She would allow no mis- i Hawker Hunter ground-attack fighters takes with Otto: not one. As she Otto had to be word moving in fast over the desert, sunlight opened the door of the operating perfect In every way, in the flashing from their plexiglass cockpit room, cool air controlled at exactly canopies as they turned to line up for the 68 degrees Fahrenheit swept over event he was captured and attack run. Swiftly but smoothly, Otto her. Taking her seat at the control interrogated during the climbed out of the helicopter left-hand console and donning a set of head- . * oe pilot's seat and made his way back to the phones, Julia turned with long special mission planned for starboard door. With one deft movement familiarity and moved two sliding him in the West End of he swung the heavy machine-gun mount controls. Immediately the green Lond outwards and locked it in place. Still trace on the delta screen started to ondon. watching the Hunters out of the corner of diminish and the alpha screen came his eye, he fed the leading end of a 200- alive slowly with a full-length trace round belt of glittering brass shells into instead of the intermittent spikes. the machine-gun breech. Every third shell was a red-tipped As Otto started to show signs of stirring, Julia flicked a _wacer round, designed to aid accuracy when firing at ground switch across to the ‘binaural’ position and the electromagnet- targets. Cocking the weapon, Otto started searching the ic fields were thrown out of synchronisation, flooding Otto's ground below for signs of movement at the rear of the fort as left and right brain hemispheres with fractionally different the Hunters levelled their wings and flipped out their belly frequencies. The effect on Otto was to force his brain to try _air-brakes to reduce speed to 450 miles an hour. and ‘match’ the continually shifting frequencies. Unable to do While he watched, Otto checked the clip of his Browning so, his brain became entrained by the alternating beat. In less | 9-mm automatic pistol, then patted the pocket of his flying than ten seconds, Otto was in a full-blown electromagnetic suit to check his two ‘special’ 9-mm rounds were safe. If the hypnotic trance. helicopter was hit by ground fire and brought down in the With high technology at its disposal, Special Operations mountains, the crew's handling by the Chinese-trained had not used "You are feeling sleepy..." hypnotic techniques | Yemeni terrorists was pre-ordained: without ceremony their for years, though a large team of tame, well-funded acade- testicles would be slashed off with a carved dagger, then mics was held in reserve to assure the gullible public that | sewn into their mouths while they still lived. If an airman hypnosis was "quite safe" and "could not be used to make a _ panicked on the ground and emptied the clip of his Browning person act against his own personal moral code". Recalling too fast, the two ‘special’ rounds were there with which to the tame academics, Julia smiled a slow, sardonic smile: all blow his own brains out if he had time. Two rounds, not one, Special Operations had to do was point a professor at the —_ because the first might misfire... public, and his hurriedly-composed excuses were instantly A small stream of humans was already leaving the rear accepted without question by citizens and media alike. door of the fort as the first Hunter fired its salvo of high Julia swung around on her chair and spoke briefly to the explosive rockets towards the front walls. With soundless team psychiatrist by the operating table: “I need maximum flashes and clouds of smoke, the rockets burst slightly to the pupil dilation five minutes from now." With a mute nod, the left of the fort with only three hitting the main structure. heavy-set bearded psychiatrist turned to the drip leading into Cursing over his radio, the leader pulled out of his attack dive Out's left forearm and waited as the drug slowly flowed into _ while his number two fired a second salvo straight into the his vein. The powerful hypnotic drug rapidly reinforced _fort itself. Otto's helicopter plummeted down towards the Otto's trance state while a ‘cocktail’ derived from curare limit- dark valleys like a falcon, as both Hunters swooped again to ed the movement of his eyelids. Nodding with satisfaction, _strafe what was left of the fort with their four 30-millimete the psychiatrist slowly started to administer atropine. cannons. cannons. APRIL - MAY 1994 12°NEXUS